334 MAKITAL OF CATTLE- FEEDING. 



Tlie time of harvest lias a great infliiCBce on the nutri- 

 tive qualities o£ straw, just as it does on those of liay. As 

 in the latter so in the former, the earlier it is cut the richer 

 in protein and the more nutritious it is. 



In fields which have been seeded down to grain, the straw 

 of the latter, in fruitful years, is often so intergrown with 

 grass, clover, etc., as to essentially increase its value and 

 enable it to entirely take the place of hay. 



Digestibility. — Comparatively few determinations of 

 the digestibility of straw have been made, oat straw being 

 the one chiefly experimented on. 



Jffenneberg & Stohmann found in exclusive straw feed- 

 ing of oxen the coefficients M and 39 for protein ; while 

 Wolff, in experiments on sheep, obtained the much lower 

 numbers, 33 and 14, with straw containing an equal per- 

 centage of protein. In the latter experiments, to be sure, 

 the straw was raised in drills and was hard-stennned, but 

 the animals were allowed to select the tenderer parts, and 

 only the st]*aw actually consumed served as the basis of the 

 calculation. The crude fibre of oat straw is quite as easily 

 digestible as that of good hay, but the digestibility of the 

 nitrogen-free extract and the fat is decidedly less. 



On the digestibility of barley straw few experiments 

 liave yet been made. 



In experiments by Wildt,'^ the digestion coefficient for 

 protein was found strikingly low, L, 17. The straw, 

 evidently, was over-ripe, and contained only 4.9 per cent, 

 of protein in the dry substance. The digestibility of the 

 nitrogen-free extract and the fibre was found to be 61 per 

 cent, and 56 per cent, respectively. With a higher per- 

 centage of protein the digestibility of these nutrients in 



Landw. Jahrbucher, VII., 146. 



